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The Best Online Storytelling and Journalism of 2013. In 2012 I posted a round-up of the best online journalism of the year, which grew as others added their favorites.

My list focused on journalism that could only be done online, the kind of storytelling that take advantage of the unique opportunities the Internet provides. This tended to be deeply visual reporting that wove together text, audio, images and videos.
FCC. Icelandic Modern Media Initiative. SKUP - The Norwegian foundation for investigative journalism. Big 4 Audit Firms Play Big Role in Offshore Murk. Global accounting giants are prime architects of the offshore money maze – and supporting characters in an array of offshore scandals For more than a decade, tax gurus at PricewaterhouseCoopers helped Caterpillar Inc., the U.S. heavy equipment maker, move profits produced by its lucrative spare-parts business from the U.S. to a tiny subsidiary in Switzerland.

How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets. Britain Detains the Partner of a Reporter Tied to Leaks. Mr.

Greenwald’s partner, David Michael Miranda, 28, is a citizen of Brazil. He had spent the previous week in Berlin visiting Laura Poitras, a documentary filmmaker who has also been helping to disseminate Mr. Snowden’s leaks, to assist Mr. Greenwald. The Guardian had paid for the trip, Mr. Mr.
Glenn Greenwald's partner detained at Heathrow airport for nine hours. Glenn Greenwald (right) and his partner David Miranda, who was held by UK authorities at Heathrow airport.

Photograph: Janine Gibson The partner of the Guardian journalist who has written a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programmes by the US National Security Agency was held for almost nine hours on Sunday by UK authorities as he passed through London's Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro. David Miranda, who lives with Glenn Greenwald, was returning from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped by officers at 8.05am and informed that he was to be questioned under schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

The controversial law, which applies only at airports, ports and border areas, allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals.
Partner of NSA leaks reporter carried paper with password, says UK. David Miranda, who was recently detained while carrying British intelligence documents through London's Heathrow Airport, reportedly wrote down the password to one of the encrypted files on a piece of paper seized by police.

Miranda, partner of The Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, carried a "piece of paper containing basic instructions for accessing some data, together with a piece of paper that included the password for decrypting one of the encrypted files on the external hard drive," UK Deputy National Security Adviser Oliver Robbins said in a "statement prepared for a High Court hearing," according to the BBC. Robbins said one file Miranda was carrying included 58,000 "highly classified UK intelligence documents," but it's not clear how many documents were part of the file said to be associated with the password. For his part, Greenwald denied that the password on its own could decrypt a document.
Indicting the US Government for crimes against humanity – unsealing the evidence. It is opportune that only a couple of weeks after three-times human rights awardee Bradley Manning presented his case against the US Government for war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan, details have been released (see video trailer above) of a 15 month investigation by the Guardian and the BBC into torture centres in Iraq, coordinated by US Special Forces commander, James Steele, and former US General Petraeus.

Add in evidence of system-wide torture and massacres in Iraq and Afghanistan as compiled by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (see below) with additional evidence from a number of other sources (also below) and what we have is much more than a dossier but an indictment – unsealed and without need for a grand jury – that could form the basis of charges raised against the US Administration either in the World Court or – deliciously turning the tables – at the military tribunal of Bradley Manning.

The game is afoot! Note 1.
Tracking James Steele, the alleged coordinator of Iraqi torture centres: US War Crimes Tribunal investigation #1. James Steele today We have tracked down the man identified by The Guardian and the BBC who they alleged supervised death squads and torture squads, first in El Salvador, then Iraq (under General Petraeus).

James Steele, named in the joint Guardian/BBC investigation, lives in Texas and operates as a counter-insurgency consultant. Significantly he styles himself as ‘Counsellor to US Ambassador for Iraqi Security Forces’.
The Iraqi Wolf Brigade & ‘Frago 234′: US War Crimes Tribunal investigation #2. The Wolf Brigade together with order Frago 234 (see below) was first exposed over two years ago when Wikileaks began to publish material provided by whistleblower Bradley Manning.

This article merely pulls together that material, given that in less than three months time a trial will commence. The Wolf Brigade – an Iraqi death squad, set up by US Special Forces coordinator James Steele – was the subject of a recent Guardian/BBC investigation: the full 50 minute video of this investigation is provided below. A Wolf Brigade raid at close quarters is shown above. Note 1.
Gareth Peirce, Andy Worthington, Wikileaks, interviews with former detainees: US war crimes tribunal investigation #3. As part of our series of investigations for a proposed US war crimes tribunal we decided on the matter of Guantanamo Bay to go direct to the experts: Gareth Pierce, Andy Worthington, Wikileaks and, of course, the former detainees.

Below, we present highlights of the investigations conducted by Andy Worthington, links to the Wikileaks files on Guantanamo and audio interviews with former Guantanamo detainees. Above is a video of a talk (January, 2012) by Gareth Peirce, who has written a book on Guantanamo (‘Dispatches from the dark side: on Torture and the death of justice’) and whose clients include Moazzam Begg and Shakar Aamer. Breaking… Gitmo detainees on now indefinite hunger strike. The overall picture that emerges from the Wikileaks files, Worthington’s flawless analysis, and Peirce’s observations is of a facility that history will show is of a level that any Nazi (and we use that term here in its true historical context not as a pejorative) would be proud of. A. B.
Afghanistan atrocities: US war crimes tribunal investigation #4. Kabul, March 2013 Recently a small but significant demonstration in support of Bradley Manning took place in Afghanistan (see photo above). Via Wikileaks, Manning told the world the truth about what was happening there.

Below, as part of our series of investigations for a proposed prosecution of the US for war crimes, we compile the evidence Manning raised (in the Afghan War Diaries) about war crimes in Afghanistan, as well as more recent evidence and extensive links. Incidentally, ask any historian and they will explain that no one – not even the Russians, not the British, not the Tartars, nor the Mongols – ever won a war in Afghanistan. War crimes 11 June, 2007. . 17 June, 2007. August 21, 2008.
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori: US War Crimes Tribunal investigation #5. Three years ago, to this week, WikiLeaks posted a 40-minute video showing an attack by US military on unarmed civilians from an Apache helicopter.

US security contractors & child sex allegations: US War Crimes Tribunal investigation #7. US officials were asked to cover up evidence of child abuse by contractors in Afghanistan – leaked diplomatic cables revealed that US officials were complicit.

DynCorp — a defense contracting firm that claimed almost $2 billion per year in revenue from U.S. tax dollars — threw a party for Afghan security recruits, featuring boys purchased from child traffickers for entertainment.
Iraq War and perverting the course of justice: US War Crimes Tribunal investigation #6. The US strategy from the beginning of the second Iraq War has been to deflect criticism and prosecution by blaming others. The war began with a lie: that Saddam Hussein had WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and a BBC documentary showed what everyone suspected – that the US Administration went to great lengths to fool the public into accepting that the war was necessary (the true reason for invasion was, of course, oil). During the course of the war the US Administration ensured it was not charged for war crimes committed or for torture.
FRONTLINE - Documentary films and thought-provoking journalism.

China-based corporate web behind troubled Africa resource deals. For centuries, wave after wave of colonists and foreign investors have swept through Africa, looking for profits from the continent’s abundant reserves of oil and prized minerals.

Many instead left records of corruption and broken promises of shared wealth with Africans. It is against this backdrop that an eager conglomerate has recently been drawing attention and generating headlines throughout Africa. China-Sonangol is part of a global network of companies extracting oil in Angola, buying gold in Zimbabwe, building luxury condominiums in Singapore and developing property in Manhattan. Its executives have met with African heads of state and challenged the global oil and mining giants who’ve been operating on the continent. And China Sonangol ventures have attracted strategic curiosity — some of its deals are the subjects of U.S.

China Sonangol has shown itself to be innovative and well-connected. New business model CIF’s first major foray into Africa was in 2005.
How a Career Con Man Led a Federal Sting That Cost Google $500 Million. Whitaker began thinking of ways to knock years off his sentence. He considered providing the names of the drug users, pushers, and doctors who had patronized his online steroid business.

They were mostly easy marks, and Whitaker was quick to take advantage of them. For a while he bottled sterile water in 1-milliliter vials, marketed it as a steroid called Dutchminnie, and sold it for $1,000 a pop.
Fearless, Independent News and Opinion.